Dublin Bus operating costs

n97 mini wrote: »

There are less services on these two routes than under the old time table.

This means that where the routes do diverge customers are seeing a reduced service, whereas the already saturated N4 corridor was not in need of improvement.

You shouldn't look at the number of departures, rather look at the actual times they ran. Having two buses running together within a short space of time followed by a large gap in service benefits nobody. I think a 15 minute frequency to Leixlip Village is fine, Lucan Village also has the 67 and the 25, then the main N4 corridor at Palmerstown has the extra service provided by the 25A and 25B.

My reply to you was in response to your claim that these routes were not being run efficiently. You haven't explained how you find this to be the case?

n97 mini wrote: »

Of course one should look at the number of departures when gauging service level. If a serviced area has less departures than before that constitutes a reduction in service!

The 66A serves the Captains Hill part of Leixlip. It's now unusable for the morning rush for a lot of people who used it before the timetable change. That's in addition to the overall reduction in 66A numbers.


One half of a town is a substantial population to not take into account when planning a bus timetable. Especially when than route is supposed to service that part of that town! Why bother with a 66A at all if it's going to be run at times to suit people somewhere else already served with multiple bus routes. That defies logic!

You are taking one example out of the entire schedule - which is fair enough as it affects you but I think you should be dealing with DB directly on that. If enough people ask perhaps the schedule can be amended. Have you asked them?

The broader picture is however a far better service along the entire corridor with a consistent frequency on all routes which is an improvement.

n97 mini wrote: »

On DB it was €2.30. What's the current BE fare?

€2.65 now, €2.40 with Leap.

I've friends in Kilcock and when it comes to traveling to and from town it is almost always the train into Dublin, either from Kilcock or Maynooth. Getting home was always Bus Eireann later in the evenings or when a train wasn't suiting. Dublin Bus never gets a look in for them or any of my or their friends in Maynooth simply as the train and Bus Eireann are more comfortable and quicker by a mile; given the choice between 25 minutes on a coach on the Motorway with a decent seat or an ALX 400 around the streets, I can't blame them

I don't know the local situation there, but with that caveat, it looks to me like that service has been reduced from three vehicles to two vehicles.

The extra service is added at 21.40, which is at fairly low expense, since it is just filling out a shift and returning a bus to the depot. It is all very well saying that you are 'increasing services' when you add services at odd times, but the service at 8.20 has been removed, and that would seem like a critical time that people would want to use the service.

This looks a lot more like a reduction in service than an increase in efficiency.

What is amazing to me is that it is nigh on impossible to get a bus from Lucan Village in the morning during college term time (say from February onwards) and it will only get worse. Thank god they have earned the increase in fares. It really makes students want to stay in Ireland

Henry1970 wrote: »

Just to throw something into this we are operating a passenger route in the ROI and my cost per km according to the antoinolachtnai formula is €2.80 direct and €3.35 with total overheads taking into account the provision of admin/maint functions.

We are a private company paying our taxes, buying legit diesel and paying €10 per hour to staff. We have our costs to the bone.

There is waste in DB but not much and im my opinon the waste is the silly money they pay bus drivers. Yes there is room for improvement but not as much as all the 'opinions' on here think. Also any improvements by a private company will be taken in a little word known as profit.

The real issue here is that bus drivers in places like Leeds/Manchester/Edinburgh/Glasgow get paid at most what equals our minimum wage, those in London get a bit more but have far higher living costs.

The other issue here is that we in Ireland cant claim VAT back on fuel or parts/consumables used in the business giving us a big disadvantage compared to the UK. This includes the purchase of buses. DB pay the VAT on ALL buses they buy and cant claim it back making the average bus in Dublin 21%(now) more expensive than the same bus in the UK.

The third thing to consider is scale, London has 8000 buses, Dublin has 950.

By taking on the hornets nest(DB unions) that would get costs down by the antoinolachtnai formula to at best €3.50 per km. There isnt the political will in this country to do this now or in the future.

The other thing is that DB provide a social service and a large proportion of services run empty or near empty which is a drain on the profitable services. In services I mean a route i.e. the 31 for example. How many daily departures on this route are profitable, how many break even and how many loose? More loose than you imagine.

We could all go and set up a route in the largest population centre in the country and run between the centre and one of the largest settlement areas and cheerypick the services we wish to run and then claim to be experts on running buses but that does'nt make us experts.

There does'nt seem to be anyone on here who actually knows what it entails to run a stage carraige service bus on an all day service offering an opinion here........but ye are all right(apparently).

Welcome aboard Henry1970 (a good year too).

It's good to have another front-line soldier posting on C&T,as Antoin,prior to his departure from Swords Express,was the only other Operational type AFAIK ?

What part of the "ROI" are you based in or what area does your Route serve ?

As a Busdriver I'm not in disagreement that we are overpaid,but as I've posted before,so is EVERY aspect of Irish Commercial and Public life.

Equally,Im acutely aware of being reminded,at length,by agencies such as the RSA,that Bus and Coach Drivers now are at a semi-professional level and this approach is set to continue as the Regulatory Agencies step up their approach to imposing ever more qualifications and requirements upon the Bus & Coach Driver.

I would suggest that approach will only serve to impose added extra operating costs on a Proprietor,as with time,and already in prospect,a ny operator is going to have serious difficulties recruting Qualified Drivers to meet the leglislative requirements.

The old days of people "drifting into" Busdriving to tide them over,have now disappeared for ever,leaving the new highly restrictive environment in it's place.

I'd be inclined to think that going-forward,the industry's Bus&Coach Driving rates will have to move towards the DB/BE end of the scale rather than the opposite.

Even in the UK market things are not quite as clear-cut as many think,especilally when issues such as Local Taxation and associated other Social Issues are included.

I remember many years ago now,during the Eurovision In Dublin era,operating shuttles with lads from a wide variety of Private Operators and being amazed at how low their basic wages were....until they educated me to the "Realpolitik" of their employments...almost to a man they were recieving "incentive or bonus " payments so structured as to be "Off The Radar" and allowing their wallets to bulge far beyond mine !!

However Henry,I would suggest that like the above practices, the Evil,Bad,Trade Union approach is now a little outdated,as things have moved on quite a bit from the Tom Darby days.

Even in Dublin Bus terms alone the multiple changes,and redundancies accompanying Network Direct were implemented with virtually no industrial action or disruption of any kind,although it can be argued that given some of the outcomes,such action would have been preferential if it had prevented the codology which initially emerged.

The entire area of PSO's and even the reality of Stage-Carriage vs Other Applications of Public Transport is,I'd agree a little appreciated minefield.

n97 mini wrote: »

Eircom was a case of privatise and give the job to.... Eircom.

€10 per hour is not possible with DB. Privatise and you sidestep DB unions and their associated pay and conditions.

You're quite correct n97Mini,whilst I rarely see things as being Impossible,I would contend that €10 per hour across the board is somewhat unlikely.

It's kind of a pointless issue really as there are so many other influences at play from outside any given employment.

However it's worth pointing out that pay and conditions in any major employer tend to have been arrived at by a process of negotiation and agreement over significant time-frames.

What is perhaps more worthwhile to tease out is what relative value we place upon various employments,for example is it a positive viewpoint to suggest that paying slightly over the Statutory Minimum Wage (€8.65 per hour) accurately reflects the level of professional responsibility and comnpetence we fully expect from an average Bus and Coach driver ?

I find it somewhat worthy of consideration that it appears acceptable to regularly place the welfare and safety of up to 120 people per vehicle,and many hundreds of people per duty in the hands of a person whom one considers is worth barely over the minimum wage ?

This,I suggest,is an issue which goes far beyond any simple Public vs Private argument in whatever sector one wishes to choose.

It is an acceptable suggestion that we commence the Race-to-the-Bottom here,but it's equally acceptable to register a difference to this opinion ?

AlekSmart wrote: »

What is perhaps more worthwhile to tease out is what relative value we place upon various employments,for example is it a positive viewpoint to suggest that paying slightly over the Statutory Minimum Wage (€8.65 per hour) accurately reflects the level of professional responsibility and comnpetence we fully expect from an average Bus and Coach driver ?

you seem to think the minimum wage is some kind of low figure though, whereas in reality it's like everything else in good ole IRL, stupidly high.